The windows of the soul

So, this is not a column that has any redeeming qualities.

I am just too exhausted reading about mayhem, destruction and duplicity to actually confront it in my daily life beyond the ordinary squabbles that occur in a small village…and, believe me, they are annoying enough.

So, I am going to write about my latest attempt at staying current on the adult female grooming scene. This time it was a lesson on how to create a smoky eye.  The women who read this column will know of that which I speak. The men will need some prompting.

I have watched professionals any number of times on those TV make over shows, create the elusive but oh so desired smoky eye on the lucky drab debs who are then turned into femme fatales or whatever passes for that today.

This time, my attention was caught by one of the leads stories on my AOL…directed to women over 40, in which category I fit nicely.

Come to think of it, they didn’t specify an upper end…hmmm.

I clicked on the link, printed out the directions and prepared to assemble the needed paraphernalia.

Let’s see, I needed several eye makeup related brushes,  something called a primer, which according to the description prevents the other makeup from melting away while covering that tell tale redness…hmmm, I wondered about that since there was nothing in my drawer of orphan cosmetics that purported to be a  primer.

The internet must have some answers, so off to Google I went and found this description from one high end company, “it minimizes the appearance of fine lines, smoothes skin texture, and keeps whatever makeup you apply over it (foundation) in place.”

The drug store  didn’t have any, nor did Wegmans.

You can, I discovered, buy several varieties at Macy’s or Lord and Taylor.

A jar costs $28, basically $28 for the makeup version of Bin or  Kilz.

If eyes are the windows to the soul, they are also a gauge to lack of sleep, overindulgence, allergies and impure thoughts.

The latter doesn’t really apply to me or rather hasn’t for some time. The most impure thought I have is the lust I feel for chocolate.

Come to think of it, that would show up somewhere near my eyes, too.

So this primer stuff is supposed to cover up all of the detritus of an ill spent life.

For those parts of my life that show up on my eye lids and the surrounding territory, we will have to make do when it comes to primer. $28?

Back to the instructions: You start with something like spackle and then using specially constructed paint brushes to add color, not one, but three to change the way your eye greets the world.

In one of the illustrations, the poor girl had pink eye shadow all over her lid. She looked like the attack of ragweed gone crazy or someone with conjunctivitis otherwise known as the dreaded pink eye. Why?

According to the instructions, the finished product creates the illusion of a slightly “cat” eye with “smoldering darkness that focuses the observer on the eye itself.” “Devastatingly daring,” said one descriptor.

Do I want to unleash this on the world?

And just where would I unleash this?  Nojaim’s, church, the library?

I am envisioning a Greek chorus riffing on the refrain of  “What happened to her?”

Reviewing the pictures of the smoked eyes, two things occurred to me.

The first was that the models could not have been older than 20 and second, they wore fabulous, chic clothing that included bare midriffs and skinny jeans.

After my first try it was clear that on my face, a smoky eye looks more like the afterglow of a night without sleep or three rounds with a able boxer.

Twenty is only a dim memory and the eye makeup couldn’t revive it.

And, even if the eye that I sought brought me,  oh, I don’t know, some kind of “youthening,”  I couldn’t afford, fit into or legitimately wear  the wardrobe that goes with it.

I have decided that for special occasions, I will continue with a touch of eye shadow and mascara …but not too much since my more than 20 year old eyelashes deposit the cosmetics on my bifocal glasses and make it impossible to see.

Accommodation to one’s limitations is something that you learn after 20, sometimes way after 20.